A gift from a dear friend

 

This morning I got a call from one of my childhood friends. My friend lives just a couple of blocks from my mother’s apartment.

Soon after I got to Boston that week before my mother died, my friend came over with apple sauce for my mother and flowers for me and for my sister. She just sat and talked with me ,and with my sister. She brought over her photo album from her bat-mitzvah and we looked at photos of the grown ups,, many of who are no longer living, and our contemporaries.  Our classmates were wearing maxi dresses if they were girls, and the boys were wearing bell bottoms and really loud jackets.

 

We remembered who we were then and caught up on what various of our contemporaries were doing.  One of our classmates had died in his thirties, some of our classmates are living exactly the lives they had fantasized about, other have had more difficult paths. Some we had completely lost track of. 

 

There was something so deeply comforting about that visit.  My friend in her kind, kind way helped me to prepare for the difficult work ahead.

 

This morning, my friend called. We talked about her parents  ( who I adore) and mine. We talked about people we knew in common. We talked about getting ready for Passover. And then my friend said that she wanted to tell me something about my mother.

 

My friend then told me about how when she was younger she was going through an emotionally difficult time. My friend’s parents had sent my friend to professionals and yet, a heavy cloud still hung over her.  My mother called my friend and had a long, long talk with her.

 

My mother kept telling my friend that she needed to listen to her own heart and that she would be ok. My friend told me that this conversation pulled her out of the abyss and was the turning point for her.

My friend then told me that she had gone to visit my mother earlier in February to tell her just how much that conversation so many decades ago had meant to her. My mother didn’t really understand what my friend was saying.

Yes, I wept as I heard my friend’s story.

 

I am so grateful for the gift my friend gave me by sharing that story.